


Like the Roadkill, I'm Paralyzed

by indevan



Category: Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Adventure tri.
Genre: Coming Out, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:41:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23539270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: When Yamato and Sora got together and suddenly everyone was checking in on him.  All of his friends assumed that he had had feelings for Sora, so he thought he did.  He did get a clench of jealousy when he found out when they were together, but it was jealousy in a way he couldn’t pinpoint.  Not at the time, anyway.  He thought maybe it was a shift of dynamics.  If they were dating, they wouldn’t want to spend time with him.  It made sense at the time and he didn’t have to examine his feelings any further.  He didn’t want to be a third wheel.  That was all
Relationships: Ishida Yamato | Matt Ishida & Takenouchi Sora, Ishida Yamato | Matt Ishida/Yagami Taichi | Tai Kamiya, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 159





	Like the Roadkill, I'm Paralyzed

Taichi doesn’t think much about what he’s gone through in his life. At least, he tries not to. Sometimes at night, when he’s hovering in the foggy space between being awake and being asleep, the images will creep in. The death of his teacher, his own near death. Blood, dirt, the ground quaking. Cracks in the sky. He’s had nightmares since he was eleven, and the only thing that’s changed are the details.

He doesn’t regret being one of the Chosen Children (even if that moniker is seeming a bit foolish now that he inches closer to twenty), wouldn’t ever regret befriending Agumon, but he could do without the negative parts. The nightmares. Once, Takeru told him that his chest gets tight every time that Patamon evolves. How he still worries that he won’t come back, that he’ll dissolve and become an egg again. He gets that. SkullGreymon is a frequent villain in his nightmares. Long, clawed hands, the jaw hanging open, the grind of bone on bone.

But right now those aren’t the thoughts plaguing him.

It’s something more personal, less catastrophic--maybe. Something he knows he’ll have to confront soon, but he doesn’t know if he wants to. Taichi isn’t sure when it began, maybe a few years ago. When Yamato and Sora got together and suddenly everyone was checking in on him. All of his friends assumed that he had had feelings for Sora, so he thought he did. He _did_ get a clench of jealousy when he found out when they were together, but it was jealousy in a way he couldn’t pinpoint. Not at the time, anyway. He thought maybe it was a shift of dynamics. If they were dating, they wouldn’t want to spend time with him. It made sense at the time and he didn’t have to examine his feelings any further. He didn’t want to be a third wheel. That was all.

But not examining his feelings then led to his predicament _now._ It’s easy to focus on high school entrance exams and soccer club and then the actual _work_ that went into high school that he had plenty of excuses to avoid thinking about it. Taichi can’t put it off, though. It’s becoming harder each day to ignore it.

It was little things, especially at first. An old soccer magazine he had found when he was cleaning his room and had flipped through to avoid continuing to clean. An article on Mark Viduka from when he played for Inter Milan. The sight of him, caught mid-run down the field. His thighs tense, his arms flexed...Taichi had felt prickly all over and quickly had to throw the magazine into the pile of trash he was accumulating to toss once he was done cleaning.

Not just that.

The other members of his club. Watching the way Yamato’s hand curls around the neck of his bass and how he leans into the mic, his lips nearly kissing the microphone. Finally seeing whatever his band was calling themselves now and having the rogue thought of, _I wish I was that microphone._

He knows what’s going on. He knows that there’s a name for it. A name for him. He can admit to himself, but that’s all. He doesn’t know how to tell the others and he doesn’t think Agumon would understand at all.

So it’s just him, for now. Until he can’t _not_ say it anymore. Or whatever.

Mostly Taichi just wants to avoid it. He’s admitted it to himself, even if he hasn’t used so many words so. That should be enough.

“You’re distracted.”

Taichi blinks twice and then a third time for good measure.

“I am?”

Sora fixes him with a look. “Don’t give me that.”

He gives her what he figures is a convincing enough smile to make up for getting lost in his own thoughts. It was her arrival that had gotten him lost in them, anyway. What their friends still say to him. About his supposed feelings for Sora. Maybe it’s easy enough to let everyone think he’s nursing an unrequited crush on his best friend’s girlfriend (even if neither of them will define that “officially,” whatever that means) because it’s an easier narrative than saying that it’s the other way around.

“Fine, fine.”

Sora sighs and tugs on the ends of her hair--a sure sign she was frustrated.

“You invited me over,” she reminds him. “And now you’re...zoning.”

She knows it’s just that, which is why she’s annoyed. All of them are prone to losing track of reality now and again. Hikari gets the worst of it, but they all have their moments.

“Sorry,” he says. “I’m just. Preoccupied with stuff.”

“Like failing math?”

“I’m not _failing_ math. I just failed the last test. It’s completely different.”

At that, Sora shakes her head, unable to hide her smile.

“Right. That’s why you called and begged me to tutor you?”

“I don’t recall begging, but okay.”

“Mmhmm.”

It’s hard to fall into their usual banter when Taichi is thinking of each thing he says before it comes out of his mouth. His mind is still elsewhere. He taps his pencil eraser on the worksheet in front of him, holding the pencil loosely so it bounces up and down. He thinks about telling Sora. If she’s the first person he says it to. He hasn’t even said it aloud to himself, but Sora’s always been one of his closest friends. Even before the Digital World. Maybe that’s why it’s so easy for people to slot him into the role of a childhood friend in love.

“Hey, Taichi?”

“Yeah?”

He flips his pencil around to at least make an effort at continuing to work on the trigonometry problems on his worksheet.

“You remember Meiko, right?”

How could he not? The girl who literally stumbled into their midst. She had had to lose her partner twice and then she left.

“Yeah?”

Sora twists some hair around her finger--her nervous tell. All of her tells had to do with her hair. If Taichi could ever figure out how to play poker, he’s fairly certain he could easily take her.

“She’s going to come to Tokyo on Sunday,” she says, “You liked her, right?”

“Yeah, she was fine.”

A little too shy, if he were being honest. Half of her sentences were spoken down at her shoes. Taichi’s had off and on hearing problems from explosions in the Digital World so sometimes he had no clue at all what she was saying.

“Well, I remember you’ve talked to her on the phone, right?”

To be polite and because people were pressuring him and it was easier to say yes. Everyone so bent out of shape in “helping” him get over his feelings for Sora. It would be touching if that were really the case, but his friends don’t know that.

“Uh-huh.”

“So when she visits, I was thinking we could all go to dinner.”

Taichi doodles a little Koromon in the corner of his worksheet.

“Who’s ‘all’?”

He pictures the entirety of their group in a restaurant. All twelve of them--thirteen counting Meiko. Everyone talking over one another in a one way ticket to sensory overload. Taichi’s used to it. Even with the faint ringing in his right ear, he loves their meetings, even when they get rowdy. Maybe even especially. But that’s too much for Meiko, he reckons.

“Meiko, you, Yamato, and me.”

He erases his doodle and idly brushes the eraser shavings away.

“Sounds a bit like a double date,” he says.

Taichi tries not to make eye contact with her.

“Well...it would be.”

He rubs his tongue over his left incisor to try and think of what to say before he says it. He _could_ say no, but then that would mean having to give a reason. Even though she switched to tennis, Sora still remembers the schedule of all of their soccer games. He knows she has a calendar so she can organize what everyone does and go where she can. Yamato’s gigs, Taichi’s soccer games, Takeru’s basketball games, dinner with Mimi--everything. Without soccer as a go to, he has no readily available excuse.

Maybe Hikari can develop a sudden cold. It’s not like odds aren’t good that she already has one. He’s _sure_ he saw her sneeze into her elbow at breakfast this morning. No, that’s no good. All Sora would have to do is ask Takeru and he would immediately rat Taichi out, the cheeky bastard.

“I don’t have any plans,” he says finally.

Sora smiles.

“Great!

Her face lights up when she smiles, and Taichi thinks he truly does love her, just not in the way that everyone thinks. She’s one of the most important people in the world to him. Maybe she can be the first person he says it to.

“Sora,” he begins.

“Yeah?”

The sunlight slants in through the sliding doors on his balcony, illuminating Sora like something out of a movie. It picks out all the threads of orange and red in her hair, making it vibrant. She’s still smiling and Taichi thinks how easy it would be if he was in love with her like that, but he isn’t. He isn’t and he doesn’t know how to say it. Doesn’t know how to say that Meiko shouldn’t waste her time going on a date with him at all. He draws in a breath through his nose and holds it a second before releasing.

“Can you show me what the difference between a sine and cosine are again because that is still fucking with me.”

She seems a bit skeptical, like she can tell that wasn’t what he was going to say, but she doesn’t comment on it. Just picks up her own pencil and says, “Sure.”

\--

Taichi wouldn’t say that he’s dreading the date, but he certainly isn’t looking forward to it. He’s never been on a date, for one, let alone one where he has to pretend to be straight. Not that he knows what he would do on a date with another guy, either.

He tries to picture it and, as a placeholder, he puts Yamato there. A few short weeks ago enclosed in a ferris wheel gondola, just the two of them. Their knees were touching and that’s what he focused on while Yamato called him out on how he was acting. He was listening but he would be lying if he hadn’t been watching the way his mouth moved, the way the necklace he wore shifted against his skin when he moved.

Pictures him instead across the table from him at a restaurant, lifting noodles to his lips and telling him about some new music theory thing that goes over Taichi’s head. He knows that it does, but he talks about it anyway because it’s a give and take. Just like when he explains soccer rules when he gets him to watch it with him and Yamato just shakes his head and says, “why does the clock count _up?”_

Maybe dating him would be easy. They already spend time together, just the two of them. Late at night, when his parents won’t miss him (or the bottle of umeshu Taichi nicks from the fridge) and he announces he’s spending the night at Yamato’s. All of them tend to go there because his dad is either working late or simply sleeping in his office so it’s private. Small. When everyone is there, it’s extremely cramped. Perfect for the two of them, though. Yamato will put on his CDs or the vinyl he’s started collecting and they’ll take turns drinking from the bottle and dancing around the living room.

He draws in a deep breath to stop himself. He’s _not_ going on a date with Yamato, or any boy. He’s going on a date with Meiko.

The door to their bedroom opens and Hikari walks in. She leans against the closed door and gives a sigh, her whole body slumping with the effort of it.

Taichi sits up.

“What’s up?”

She gestures vaguely into the apartment.

“Mom and dad are arguing again.”

“Ah.”

Their parents never argue over anything serious and it never lasts long, but it’s always over the same things. Whether or not they should move to a place with more bedrooms. Hikari and he used to share until they couldn’t anymore so they converted the office to another bedroom. His mom wants a bigger place with bedrooms and offices and his father says they’re fine as is and, “Anyway, Taichi is leaving soon!”

It gets tiresome hearing it over and over again--to say nothing of the frequent reminder that he’s leaving and that he still doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life. He’s vented about it to Sora, but not to Yamato. He’s still a bit sensitive about parental arguments. Apparently his own had some truly nasty ones before they finally divorced when he was a kid. The sort of thing that leaves scars, even ten years later.

He’s aware, then, of Hikari staring at him with uncanny awareness. She’s always been like that. They’ve never come up with a name for whatever ability she has, or powers, or whatever. That lets her hear things others can’t, to see more than what’s shown. Takeru told him once about the Dark Ocean and the inhabitants that want her. He’ll never let them have her, but he can guess why they’re intrigued.

“What?” he asks.

He wonders sometimes if she already knows and is just waiting for him to tell her.

“Sora-san tells me you’re going on a date Sunday.”

“She did?”

Hikari comes and sits next to him on the bed.

“Are you excited?”

The question is disarming and spoken with wisdom beyond fourteen years. Taichi’s mouth is dry.

“No,” he says before he can stop himself.

Hikari nods, as if expecting that answer. She reaches out and puts her hand over top of his.

“Nii-san,” she says, “If there’s anything you want to tell me, know that it won’t change how I feel about you.”

She knows. There is no way anyone would say that in response to him not being enthusiastic about a date unless they _knew._ Taichi swallows against his sandpaper throat.

“What’s that mean?”

He reckons that he ought to hand over his crest for that act of cowardice. Hikari seems to share his sentiment because she knits her brow. He tries again.

“It isn’t you I’m worried about it.”

There’s never been any brother-sister horror stories with him and Hikari. Arguments they have are solely about how gets control of the remote. He still hasn’t said everything, but he isn’t sure that he can speak the words aloud yet, even to Hikari. Even to himself. Hikari tucks some hair behind her ear that’s just long enough to reach.

“Daisuke-kun has a soccer game on Sunday,” she says. “You should come.”

The sudden subject change confuses him. If there was some segue he missed being stuck in his own head.

“What?”

“It’ll end before the date,” she continues.

He’s certain that there’s something significant there that she’s trying to say. What it has to do with the soccer game.

“Sure,” he says.

He hasn’t seen Daisuke play in a while and, anyway, it’ll get his mind off of the date and distract him from figuring out how he’s going to act.

\--

The team Daisuke’s soccer club is playing against is a joke. Their forward can barely stop from tripping over the ball when he tries to dribble it and they can’t score to save their lives.

“He’s running circles around them,” Ken murmurs from his spot on Taichi’s left.

Right, he plays soccer, too. This has got to be killing him. Taichi watches Daisuke steal the ball again and go for another goal.

“I didn’t know soccer scores went up that high,” Takeru says in a bemused voice. “Can the scoreboard actually reach double digits or will it malfunction?”

Hikari elbows him in the side but she’s laughing with him. Taichi cringes. It’s hard to watch. He can tell even from here that Daisuke’s upset. The two of them have more differences than similarities, Taichi thinks, but this is one area where they’re exactly alike. They both want a challenge. They both want a fun game.

Finally, the other team is given mercy and the game is called. They leave the field, shoulders drooping, cleats dragging through the grass, not one of them glancing at the scoreboard.

Daisuke is with his teammates in a huddle near the bench. Taichi’s familiar with those. His teammates patting shoulders and rubbing backs goodnaturedly. How his skin has always gone tight from the touching. How he tries to ignore it because his mind needs to be on the game.

The others descend from their spot in the bleachers and Taichi trails after them. Daisuke peels away from his teammates and rushes over to the group. He has a smile on his face, but it looks forced.

“Wow,” he says. “I don’t even think I broke a sweat.”

“You still smell,” Ken says, but he’s giving a small smile. “But you always do.”

Daisuke hooks an arm around him and pulls him close. “You love it.”

Ken gives a bit of an eye roll but Taichi suspects that it’s just for show, because that little smile is still on his face.

“Are we going out to lunch?” Miyako asks.

Daisuke nods. Turns to him. “Are you coming, senpai?”

He thinks Hikari asked him here for a reason, but he can’t figure out what it is. All it’s done is delay what time he’s had to prepare for this date, which is sooner than he wants it to be.

“He has to get ready for his date,” Takeru answers for him. He flashes a sly smile. “Mochizuki-san.”

Hikari pinches the flesh at his elbow and fixes him with a look. Something passes between them. Taichi can never figure out, even with his big brother senses, what the actual deal between the two of them is. He knows that oftentimes it’s as if they’re communicating telepathically.

“I’ll walk to the stop with you,” he says. “But yeah. I have to go home.”

That seems to please Daisuke enough. As a group, they leave the field and the school.

“We aren’t even having a meeting after that,” Daisuke says, even though no one even blamed him for bailing on the team post-game. “‘They sucked real bad. Good job humiliating them.’”

He cracks up at himself. Ken is still held under his arm, even as they’re walking.Taichi sees him reach up and let his hand linger on Daisuke’s. Their fingers lace together for a fleeting moment before Ken relaxes his hand and lets it drop back to his side.

_Oh._

This is why Hikari asked him here. How he was worried about what the others would say. Daisuke and Ken...but they’re different. This is Hikari’s group. Her friends. He catches her eye and she gives a soft smile.

He doesn’t know if this has helped or not, but he appreciates the effort.

\--

The restaurant is casual, just as Sora said in her email, and Taichi’s glad for it. He hadn’t known what to wear so he settled on the same orange shirt and brown shorts that he had worn to the soccer game. It isn’t like he wants to go out of his way to impress Meiko. He just doesn’t want to embarrass them both.

“Wow, you’re early. I should alert the media.”

Yamato looks good--because he always does--in his distressed white jeans and band tee. He’s alone.

“Sora’s picking up Meiko from the train station,” he explains as if reading his thoughts.

Sometimes he wonders if he can. They’ve combined their Digimon through jogress, after all. Hikari has said she’s felt Miyako’s thoughts and emotions before, but that could just be Hikari and whatever unexplained abilities she has. That isn’t even getting into her dynamic with Takeru. Not just her, though. He’s noticed Daisuke and Ken be keen to each other’s feelings and thoughts--to get Daisuke to be that cognizant of others’ emotions _has_ to be the result of jogress. But. He remembers their linked hands, the way Daisuke gave their fingers a squeeze before Ken let go.

“Oh, cool,” he says. “Which band is that?”

He gestures to Yamato’s shirt.

“LCD Soundsystem,” he says. At his blank expression, he adds, “They’re American.”

“Ah.”

Yamato slips his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and gives a shrug.

“I’ve got some of their songs on mp3 if you want me to send them to you.”

“Sure.”

Taichi never really cares about what he listens to, but he’s ended up with a pretty varied knowledge of music just from hanging out with Yamato. On their nights in his apartments, loosened up from sips of umeshu or kirin or whatever they’ve pilfered because they’re still three years off from being twenty and able to buy it themselves. He’ll play music and talk about this arrangement or that or why certain songwriters wrote certain songs. His knowledge is vast and Taichi, inebriated as he is, soaks it up somehow. Locks it away in a special portion of his brain dedicated to dumb music trivia Yamato relays with such earnestness.

“We should get a table.”

“Right. Yeah.”

They end up next to each other at the four-top table, waiting for Sora and Meiko to fill the seats across from them to “make it easier for conversation.” Taichi hasn’t even thought about what to talk to Meiko about.

“Takeru says you went to Daisuke’s soccer game today,” he says. “Missing middle school?”

He pulls a face and pushes him gently.

“Hikari asked me to. You know how hard it is to say no.”

He has to turn in his seat to talk to him properly and they’re too close. If anyone understands being at the whim of their younger sibling, it’s Yamato. Sure enough, he rolls his eyes.

“You mean how I always end up in a stinky gym listening to sneakers squeak for two hours at almost every one of Takeru’s basketball games?”

He laughs. “Exactly.”

Yamato adopts a thoughtful expression.

“I always tell him that he could kill someone and I would help him hide the body.”

Taichi chokes on his spit in laughter.

“Really?”

“‘Really’ as in I’ve said it, yeah. But…” He taps a beat with one finger on the table. “It’s just an exaggeration.”

“Right.”

“I don’t think Takeru has it in him to kill someone,” he says.

“You’ve talked about it?”

Yamato shrugs.

“In the figurative. You know when you’re watching a horror movie or something and someone brings it up.”

Taichi shrugs.

“I tend to stay away from horror. Got enough of it, y’know?”

He doesn’t have to say more. Yamato simply nods.

From where they’re sitting, they can see the door to the restaurant. He spots Sora’s hair first, of course, and then Meiko’s darker hair as she trails behind her. Sora gives a wave and immediately heads to their table. Right. With Taichi’s hair (a cowlicky, unruly mess he can never do anything with even when he tries) and the color of Yamato’s, it’s easy to spot them.

“Hey. Sorry, we’re late.”

“We were early,” Taichi says.

Sora smiles. “Right.”

She doesn’t kiss Yamato in greeting, but she puts her hand on the crook of his elbow. He brushes his fingers against hers before she lets go. Second instance of couples gently touching fingers, he thinks. Not that Yamato and Sora would have to keep quiet about it like Ken and Daisuke do. Or why Taichi keeps his mouth shut. Meiko sits across from him and smiles shyly.

“It’s good to see you,” she says and he has to strain to hear her.

“Same to you.” He tries to think of something else to say. “Easy train ride?”

She nods. There’s a slight blush on her cheeks that wasn’t really there when she spoke to him before, but he supposes that this is a different dynamic than talking about the Digital World. This is a date.

Honestly, he isn’t a fan of the blushing. He likes someone who speaks their mind and is assertive about it.

A server comes to their table to take their order and Taichi realizes that he hasn’t even looked at the menu. He echoes whatever it is Sora says because they tend to like the same things when it comes to food.

While they wait, he tries to think of something to say to Meiko.

“Are those new glasses?”

She shakes her head. “No.”

_Shit._

“Oh. Well. Uh. They look nice.”

Yamato makes a snorting sort of laugh next to him and then fails to disguise it as a sneeze. He may be a good musician, but he’s a terrible actor. Luckily, Taichi doesn’t have to give him a pointed look because Sora beats him to it.

He tries to stick to easier questions after that. Stuff about classes and if she’s joined any clubs now that she’s transferred back to her old school. He’s beginning to think that he can make it through.

“So…” Meiko says, again speaking more at the table than at him.

Taichi is kind of over the shy thing entirely, but he doesn’t want to be mean. He feels something nudge against his bare leg and at first he thinks he must have moved and bumped the stand keeping the table up but then it’s _moving_ and he realizes it’s someone’s foot. It’s _Meiko’s_ foot. Maybe not so shy, then. He draws his leg back, trying to be subtle about it. Maybe the nudging wasn’t deliberate. She could have been adjusting. These are small tables after all. He just knows that it feels. Wrong. This entire thing is wrong. Small talk, everything being one and one as if he can’t involve Sora and Yamato just because he’s on a “date.”

He looks at Meiko and tries to muster a smile, if for her sake. She came all the way out here, after all. But he can’t. The corners of his mouth feel like they’re trying to move through solid concrete.

“I have to go.”

The words are out before he can even think about saying them.

“What?” Sora asks.

“What?” Yamato echoes.

Meiko knits her brow, confused. Taichi stands.

“I, uh. Forgot that I have to help Hikari make dinner. Y’know how she sometimes gets lightheaded if she stands for too long. Don’t want that to happen when the stove is on, right?”

Everyone is staring at him and Taichi doesn’t even think he sounds like himself. He sounds fake and loud, his voice wavering as he keeps talking, filling the sudden void he created with nonsense.

He has to leave now, because he’s certain he’ll spout more dumb bullshit if he stays there.

“Sorry,” he says and gives a slight bow before he bolts out the door of the restaurant.

He gets as far as the corner before he hears his name yelled.

“Taichi!”

He knows he has to stop, because it’s Sora calling after him and he would do anything for her. So he turns so they’re facing one another. She’s mad. Of course she is.

“What was that about?” she demands.

He doesn’t know what to say. He’s a bad liar. Any excuse would just be as fake as the one he gave in the restaurant.

“Hikari,” he starts, because it doesn’t hurt to try. “She--”

“Don’t try that bullshit again,” she snaps. “If you didn’t want to go on a double date, you could have just said so.”

He shakes his head. “No. I couldn’t have.”

Taichi knows he can only keep turning girls down for so long before someone starts questioning. Before his secret is out for everyone to know. At least Meiko is a girl he’s familiar with.

“I don’t get it,” Sora says. “Meiko is sweet. Is she not your type?”

“You could say that.”

He needs to get away but Sora has him pinned in place. She hasn’t put a single hand on him, but she has him there. She always has.

“Then tell me what your type is,” she says. “Because I’m tired of the three of us not being able to hang out like we used to. I thought...if you dated someone like Meiko. Or another girl…”

It comes back to this. Taichi’s supposed feelings for her. The lovelorn childhood friend narrative. Right. Right. He feels suffocated by it. By everyone’s assumptions. By what he isn’t saying. He feels it, heavy on his tongue.

“There won’t be me and Meiko, though,” he says. “Or me and another girl for that matter.”

He wants to bite his traitorous tongue, but Sora is shaking her head.

“Why, Taichi?” she asks. “You aren’t that hung up on…”

She shakes her head again, her own humility not wanting to say it out loud. And he can agree because that’s easier. Yes, he’s in love with her. So in love that it’s ruined him for other girls. He’ll wait around for her and Yamato to break up, if they ever do, to pick up the pieces and settle on being runner-up. He could say that. All he has to do is open his mouth.

“It’s not that,” he says instead.

“Then what is it Taichi? Because I don’t understand why you just got up and _left._ _Why?”_

He can backpedal, maybe. Fall into the narrative everyone’s slotted him into. Make his apologies and head back inside. Laugh it off and apologize to Meiko again.

_Open your mouth. Use your words, Yagami._

“Because I’m gay.”

He thinks his throat is about to close up. He brings his hand to it, unable to believe what he just said. He’s never said it out loud, even to himself. Silence stretches between them both. Sora brings her fingers to her mouth, eyebrows raised. This isn’t what she expected to hear. Taichi tries to swallow against his clenched throat. He feels like he’s being strangled.

As the silence goes on, the air between them is thick. Taichi forces himself to meet Sora’s surprised eyes. She doesn’t seem disgusted, or angry. But. She isn’t saying anything.

“Tell Meiko I’m sorry again,” he mumbles.

Not sure what else to do, he leaves.

\--

Hikari’s putting a tape in the player when he bursts in the front door. She rights herself and looks at him in confusion.

“You’re home early.” She cocks her head to the side. “Are you alright?”

Taichi runs his fingers through his hair, trying to avoid getting his fingers tangled in one of his snarls.

“I ran out on the date and when Sora followed me to ask why, I told her that it’s because I’m gay.”

Hikari walks over to him and puts a hand on his shoulder. She waits a beat before wrapping her arms around him in a hug. Taichi hugs her back, glad for some sort of buoy to hold onto after everything that’s happened.

To his right, the toilet flushes and he freezes. He hasn’t even thought about telling their parents. He doesn’t think that they would be angry or hateful, but no one can be sure. They would probably mostly just be confused.

The bathroom door opens and it’s not his parents. Somehow, it’s worse. Maybe he should have expected it when he told Sora. You tell one person, that’s it. Hikari, he knows, would never tell, but if he told any one of his friends, eventually everyone would know. Especially now.

Takeru adjusts his hat and shifts his gaze to Hikari. “You already knew?”

She nods.

Taichi isn’t sure what he’s going to say. He sees him make a face and he feels cold all over.

“Is that why you invited him to the game today?” he asks her, voice incredulous. “So he could see Ken and Daisuke together and know it’s okay to come out?”

“Well, when you put it that way…” Hikari says. “I mean, I could have--”

“Hikari-chan.”

Taichi doesn’t know what that’s about, but at this moment, he doesn’t care. He walks to their couch and sinks into it. He rubs both hands over his face, pressing the tips of his fingers against his eyes.

“Was it that big a deal?”

Takeru’s voice is close. He must be leaning against the back of the couch.

“He’s only ever told me,” Hikari says. “And he didn’t plan it. Right?”

Taichi nods because it’s easier than talking and lets his hands drop.

“I had never even said it to myself,” he says. “Used the word, y’know?

“Really?” Takeru sounds surprised.

“Yeah, like. I...knew it, but I never said it.” Taichi lets out a joyless laugh.

“How’d you know?” Hikari must give him a look because he adds, “I’m just curious.”

“It’s fine.”

Anything to get over telling Sora. At least Takeru is just rolling with it. But, he’s in Hikari’s group, too. He’s friends with Daisuke and Ken. It’s different. He’s sure of it. In his mind’s eye, he can still see Sora’s look of shock.

Taichi lifts his face up to look at Takeru properly and knows that he can _not_ tell him that part of his awakening was due to his brother so he takes the easier option.

“Mark Viduka,” he says.

“Who?”

“A soccer player,” Hikari supplies. “He’s British--”

“Australian.”

“And he played for Real Madrid.”

“Inter Milan.”

Takeru shakes his head.

“Australian? Not even a Japanese soccer player?”

“He mostly only watches British soccer,” Hikari says. Apparently her sympathy for his situation can only extend so far, because now she’s being cheeky. Takeru brings it out in her. “He follows Liverpool.”

Taichi sighs in aggravation, but secretly he’s relieved for the distraction about his sexuality and his blurted confession.

“I don’t see why it’s a big deal. You probably only like American basketball teams.”

“Basketball is an American sport. Soccer is _international.”_

“And? I like Japanese clubs, too, I just _prefer_ watching Liverpool.”

Takeru stops to adjust his hat before resuming his teasing.

“I don’t even like basketball, really,” he says. “I was talked into joining the club because I’m tall.”

Hikari reaches out to mess with the hat and he stops her by gently taking her wrist.

“You _are_ tall,” she says. “You used to be even shorter than me.”

“Nicer, too,” Taichi says grouchily. “I remember when you were the sweetest kid. When’d you grow into such a shithead?”

Takeru grins broadly in response and gives a little shrug.

“Well, I’m a scorpio, so…”

He moves Hikari’s arm and the two of them proceed to mess around a bit with her trying to take his hat. Taichi thinks they’ve moved beyond him.

“We’re about to watch a movie if you want to join us,” she says.

They’ve stopped doing whatever play-fighting routine and somehow ended up flanking him on the couch. Taichi shakes his head.

“I think I’m just going to lie down or something,” he says.

“We were going to have Tailmon and Patamon come through,” she continues. “Maybe they can grab Agumon.”

Taichi pauses in the midst of getting up.

“Koushiro said that he didn’t have the new portal up and running yet.”

Takeru nods.

“The new one, yes, but he got the old one that works by D3s to work so…”

Taichi considers it. Agumon might not know a thing about what being gay means, he’d be good for support. But it’s too soon after everything and, besides, Agumon and them aren’t as used to being outside the Digital World as Hikari and her friends’ Digimon. He doesn’t want to endanger him just by being selfish.

“It’s alright,” he says. “I think I just want to. Forget this whole day happened.”

He gives them both a wave and walks into their bedroom. He hopes, at the very least, that he can get some sleep.

\--

Taichi drags himself into the kitchen the next morning, feeling like death. He thinks that he maybe got an hour of sleep. Despite what Takeru and Hikari said last night, he’s worried. Maybe not of not being accepted but of things changing. Of his friends looking at him differently. At some point during his fitful attempts at sleep, he found himself almost wishing for nightmares because at least they mean that he’s asleep.

He falls into a chair and cradles his head in his hands.

“Oh, you look terrible.”

Taichi glances up to see his mother looking at him in concern.

“I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Not much or none?”

He doesn’t know what to say to that. His head is pounding and his eyes are burning and the thought of going downstairs and getting on his bike to go to school is too much of a struggle to think about. To say nothing about actually being in class. And Sora will be there and he does _not_ have the mental fortitude to answer any questions she would have, if she wants to talk to him at all. He hasn’t even looked at his phone since he left the restaurant so he can’t be sure if she’s contacted him or not.

“You should stay home.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t want you making yourself sick. I’ll fix you some tea and then you can go have a lie down.”

His mother is speaking to him like she did when he was little and he’d be sick. With Hikari being ill so often, his parents were used to him being branded as “healthy,” so the times where he was actually sick, they babied him to no end. It used to annoy him but, truthfully, Taichi wants nothing more than to let calming tea hopefully lull him to sleep. Or, if not the tea, then his body’s eventual exhaustion taking him out. He’ll be fine with either. Especially if whatever void of sleep he falls into is dreamless.

While his mom puts the kettle on, Taichi goes back to his room to switch out his uniform for pajamas. He notices that he didn’t even button his shirt properly so it probably _is_ for the best that he stays home.

He isn’t sure how he manages it, but by mid-afternoon, Taichi thinks that he’s actually been able to get a decent amount of sleep. His head feels less foggy, but he still feels groggy. And hungry.

He crawls out of bed to see what’s in the kitchen for him to eat. His mom left some hours ago, so he has to hope she left him lunch or something because he doesn’t think he’s got it together enough yet to cook anything. He’s examining the contents of the fridge, when there’s a knock at the front door. Taichi sighs and shuts the door. It’s about time for school to be over so he figures that Hikari may have forgotten her key. Usually she goes over to Takeru’s building to do homework in his or Miyako’s apartment, but it’s not like she runs her schedule by him.

He opens the door and nearly shuts it again.

“I brought your classwork,” Sora says.

\--

The two of them sit side by side on the floor, backs up against the base of his bed. He knows he has to talk to Sora, but he didn’t think she would just show up with his absent work.

“Did you stay home from school because of me?” she asks. “You weren’t answering any emails I sent so…”

“It was actually my mom’s idea. I looked like a ghoul this morning.” He does an attempt at making a silly, dramatic face, but his heart isn’t in it.

“No sleep?”

Taichi nods.

“Yeah, but about--it. Not like, y’know.”

“Right.”

Sora smooths her uniform skirt down her thighs and rolls her lips in. One hand slips up to tug on her hair.

“Taichi,” she begins, “Is it true?”

“That I’m gay? Yeah.”

He doesn’t meet her eye. Each time he says the word, it feels differently. It’s a bit lighter.

“So it wasn’t an excuse,” she says. “I was worried and. That I’d have to be pissed at you for using that as a lie.”

He nearly laughs.

“No. It wasn’t.”

Sora chews her lip.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” she asks.

“I barely could tell myself,” he replies. “I’m. Still telling myself, I guess. I don’t know. It’s weird.”

She doesn’t say anything for a moment that turns into a minute that stretches into an eternity.

“This doesn’t change anything,” Sora says finally. “You’re still one of my best friends--well. I guess it changes one thing.”

“What?”

“I guess I can stop feeling bad for not having feelings for you.”

A laugh bubbles between them that feels like salt water on a cut. But he thinks it might be okay.

“It was easier--to. Let everyone think that I was just heartbroken over you and Yamato being together.”

Her face shifts and Taichi can’t figure out why.

“Sora?”

“We aren’t.”

He feels completely lost.

“What?” He points to himself and then at her. “Us?”

Sora shakes her head.

“No. Yamato and me. We aren’t together. We’ve never been together.”

Taichi blinks at her.

“What?” He shakes his head rapidly. Maybe he’s still not fully awake and misheard her.

“I don’t want to make it about me. We’re talking about you,” she says.

“Forget about me being gay-- _what?”_

Sora sighs and pushes him a little. As curious as Taichi is, he feels glad that this is some kind of return to normalcy.

“It’s why we never defined it or made it official. There was...nothing to make official,” she says. “Everyone just expected it, I guess. Same with you.” She lets out a shaky little laugh. “You’re the first person I’ve told.”

“Back at ya.” He pauses. “Well, except for Hikari, but I never actually used the words ‘I’m gay’ with her so. Yeah. You were the first.”

A little smile ghosts across her face.

“Do you want it to be official with him?” he asks. “Like--be together?”

“I did, once. And we tried. We’ve even…” Sora bites her lip. “Well. But. We work better as friends. Yamato has someone else he likes anyway.”

That’s news to him.

“Who?”

“Not my business to tell.”

“Is it Meiko?”

She laughs, this time loudly and abruptly.

“No. It’s not Meiko.”

“I feel kind of bad,” he says, “but not too bad...is that bad?”

“Too many uses of ‘bad’ in one sentence, but no. I mean, you feel bad for letting her down, but she isn’t someone you’re close enough to really dwell on it?”

“Maybe.”

“It’s not like it was Mimi or someone.”

“I think Koushiro’s head would explode if I went on a date with her,” he says.

Sora nods.

“Speaking of officially together…”

Taichi raises his brows.

_“Really?”_

He’s glad. It took a bit of cluing in from Takeru for him to realize Koushiro had a crush on Mimi but he’s happy for them. And not at all jealous that it’s easier for the two of them. Well, maybe only a little.

The two of them fall into silence again and he doesn’t know what Sora is going to come out with next. She’s fine with him being gay. She and Yamato aren’t actually together (and he doesn’t know how to wrap his mind around that, or how to figure out what that has to do with his own feelings). What next?

“Do you want to go kick a ball around for a bit?” she asks. “I’m kind of missing it.”

Again, not what he was expecting, but he’s not upset.

“I still don’t know why you quit,” he says.

“When I hurt my ankle, that time my mom wouldn’t let me play? That was just the one time I didn’t try playing on it. I kept going and ended up messing my ankle up pretty bad.”

“And tennis was better for it?”

“For a bit. I had to quit that, too.” She reaches forward to rub at her ankle.

“So you’re joining the flower arranging club?” he teases.

She scrunches her face up.

“Definitely not. I tried it a couple times, you know, for my mom, but.” Sora shudders. “I’m _not good_ at it.”

The laugh that passes between them is a lot more natural and Taichi thinks they’ll both be alright. Sora bumps him with her shoulder and he bumps her back.

\--

Taichi doesn’t think Sora told anyone one--in fact, he knows she hasn’t. She gave him her word that it’s his business to tell and he trusts her. He can’t stop his body’s reaction, though, when Yamato tells him after class to come to his place Saturday.

“My dad is working late.”

When he asks, Taichi watches his face to see if he betrays anything, but he’s always been a bit oblivious when it comes to reading people. So he just nods and Saturday night he finds himself cramming liquor in his backpack when his parents aren’t looking and announcing that he’s leaving for Yamato’s. He figures they heard him and, if they didn’t, they’d know eventually where to find him.

Yamato greets him at the door by pressing an open bottle of Sapporo into his hand.

“My dad got this for a party that never happened because everyone invited had to work late. Drink up.”

There’s already music playing. He steps out of his shoes and pads into the living room. Yamato drinks from an open bottle of beer and he flashes him a look. Taichi feels his chest clench. God, he’s handsome. He takes a pull from his own beer and sets down his bag.

“I have my dad’s umeshu in here,” he says. “Should I pop it in the fridge or are you going to mix liquor, you lush?”

“Put it in the fridge.” Yamato smirks and adds, “Ass.”

Taichi sets his beer on the table and unzips his bag to fetch it. It’s half-full, but he isn’t planning on getting trashed. He’s always been afraid of his secret slipping out if he has too much drink and, also, he wants to remember their nights spent together. They’re _their_ nights. As much as Taichi likes when everyone gets together, he likes when he and Yamato spend time on their own.

“Is this the band from your shirt last week?” he asks. “LSD Soundsystem?”

“LCD Soundsystem,” Yamato says, rolling his eyes. “And, no. This is Godspeed You! Black Emperor.”

“What?” Taichi retrieves his beer and shakes his head. “Another American band?”

“Canadian,” he corrects. “Someone on that music forum I’m on recommended them and I liked them enough to burn a CD.”

Taichi thinks they sound weird, but Yamato always has had eclectic tastes. Old blues music, prog rock, alternative, experimental things. He appreciates his appreciation even if he doesn’t care much what he listens to either way since he sometimes can’t even hear the _nuances,_ as Yamato puts it.

“And don’t ‘oh another American band,’ Liverpool soccer.”

“Football.”

They share a laugh. It feels natural. Taichi feels better in general. Since his talk with Sora, anyway.

“It’s okay, you know,” Yamato says.

He sets his beer down on the table.

“What’s okay?”

“About the date. I’m kinda glad you left.”

Of course, Taichi knows why but Yamato doesn’t know that he knows why.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He stares at the condensation dripping down the bottle for a moment and Taichi thinks he’s going to lift it up to drink again but instead he says, “Sora told me that she told you. About us.”

Or maybe he does.

“Ah.”

He doesn’t know what else to say. What else _can_ he say?

Yamato snatches his bottle back up and starts drinking. Taichi watches his throat work as he chugs it and tries not to fixate on it. He glances away. He can have a crush on Yamato without being an absolute weirdo mesmerized by how his adam’s apple bobs up and down.

He slams the bottle down and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I just can’t,” he says. “Relationships...I don’t. Want to be in one when I’m this young…”

Taichi sinks into a chair at the table and turns his hand out to let him know he can keep talking. Yamato sits across from him and pushes his hands into his hair.

“My parents met their first year of college and two years in, they got married.”

“What? Why? Weren’t they still in school?”

Yamato smiles ruefully.

“Let me put it this way: they got married and five months later, I was born.”

_“Oh.”_

He lifts his head and looks somewhere over Taichi’s shoulder. Yamato isn’t drunk but he’s tipsy enough to be more candid than usual. They’ve had enough nights here together, drinking, for him to know his levels of being inebriated.

“They were so young and, if it weren’t for me, they might have realized they weren’t right for each other…”

“Yeah, but then you wouldn’t be here and neither would Takeru.”

“I guess.” He shakes his head. “I think I fuck myself up because of it. I _should_ be able to date Sora or anyone else without worrying about it.”

Taichi reaches out and pats his hand, unsure what else to do. Words like this have never been his strong suit.

“Are you two together now?” he asks.

Taichi withdraws his hand, confused.

“What? Who? Me and Sora?”

Yamato nods.

“Yeah. I mean, isn’t that why she told you?”

He can’t help it, he laughs. It starts small but keeps building until he’s barely able to breathe. Taichi takes great gulps at air, trying to calm himself down, but the laughter returns, louder this time. Finally, he’s able to control himself enough to shake his head.

“It wasn’t that funny,” Yamato says flatly.

“Sorry, sorry. Just. No. She told me because I told her…” He hesitates before saying, “I’m gay.”

He waits for Yamato’s answer. He stares at him with those intense blue eyes of his, and Taichi finds himself unable to look away. He wishes he were more poetic like Yamato with his songwriting. He could write entire odes about his eyes, but he can’t, so he just meets them with his own.

“Oh,” he says finally. “Then I guess thinking you and Sora dating _is_ pretty funny.”

A God awful, strangled sound comes out of his throat.

“You ass!” he says and starts laughing again.

Yamato holds his hands up.

“Sorry. Couldn’t help myself.” He leans back in the chair and hooks his arm over the back. “Who knows other than me and Sora?”

“Hikari. Takeru.”

“You told my brother and you didn’t tell me?” he says, voice mock offended.

“After I told Sora, I freaked out and ran home and told Hikari. Takeru was in the bathroom and overheard.”

“Fair, fair.”

Taichi props his chin up on one hand and sighs.

“I’m kind of sick of telling people. Maybe I’ll just tell everyone else in a big group.”

“Good luck getting all of us together for that. Jyou is in full university mode.”

“Don’t forget his girlfriend,” he says. “When do you think we’ll meet her, by the way?”

Yamato smirks.

“Considering she’s probably fake? Likely never.” His smirk fades. “Like I’m one to talk. I’m in a fake relationship, too.”

Taichi doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just nods. The label on his beer bottle is peeling at the corner and he fiddles with it.

“Y’know, Sora said you liked someone else. Who is it? Anyone I know?”

Yamato sits up straight. “No one.”

It’s very clearly not “no one.” Taichi cocks his head to the side.

“C’mon. I just came out to you. You can at least tell me who it is.”

He shakes his head.

“It doesn’t matter, anyway. I _told_ you. Even if we’re in love and things are good, it could turn bad like that.” He snaps his fingers.

“Yamato--”

“It doesn’t matter even if I have a chance now. Okay?”

His voice catches and Taichi is reminded that, when he lets it out, Yamato can have a pretty powerful temper. And what does “if I have a chance now” mean anyway?

He stands up. “I’m going to put a different CD on.”

Taichi realizes only now that the one from before ended. He stands and follows Yamato in his room to find him crouched on the floor, flipping through his CD binder feverishly.

“Have you heard of the Gorillaz?” he asks, lifting his face to him. He shakes his head. “Of course you haven’t. This album just came out in May. I like it. They’re British like your _football_ team.”

He’s trying to joke, but his voice sounds scratchy and fake.

“Yamato, what is it?”

He snaps the binder closed and gets to his feet.

“I told you, it didn’t matter. Before, and now. It’s whatever.”

“You’re being defensive.”

“I _am_ not.”

“He says defensively,” Taichi says, unable to help himself. “Just tell me what’s wrong? Like ‘having a chance’ now and everything.”

He stares at him. Again with those eyes. Taichi is frozen in place. He swallows thickly. Yamato closes the distance between them and captures Taichi’s lips with his own. He doesn’t move at first and it takes his mind a moment to register that Yamato is _kissing_ him. His body catches on first, kissing him back. He feels Yamato’s hands slip into his hair and he lets his own rest on his shoulders. They part.

“Sorry,” Yamato says.

“Don’t be.”

“It was you, by the way. Who I have feelings for.”

“No, I got that.”

They share a low, breathy chuckle.

“But. Are you--?”

“I’m bi,” Yamato says quickly.

The only two responses that go through his head are “ah,” and “cool,” and neither will suffice. Instead, he just nods.

“But. It doesn’t matter. Even if we. I. I can’t.” He closes his eyes and lets his forehead rest against Taichi’s.

“I mean, it doesn’t have to be, like, be all, end all. We’re seventeen. We can...see where it goes.”

It sounds alright, he reckons, but Yamato doesn’t seem convinced. He’s still so close to him, his hands in his hair, fingertips just brushing his scalp.

“Maybe…” He chews his lip.

Taichi tries again.

“We don’t have to decide anything now. Let’s just hang out tonight, maybe kiss some more, and talk it out later.”

“Maybe kiss some more?” Yamato arches a brow. “Definitely kissing more.”

“Okay, that we both agree on.”

He really didn’t think tonight would end with him and Yamato kissing, but he’s far from upset about it.

“It wouldn’t be like me and Sora,” he says. “Whatever we decide.”

“I know. She told me. About the friendship, not romance thing.”

Yamato nods, lips slightly pursed.

“Right. I do love her. Just not. Like that.”

“Same here.”

They stand, still so close, and Taichi isn’t sure what to do.

“Are you going to kiss me again? You’re still really close.”

“I mean, yes, but also I’m still here because my hands are stuck.”

He crinkles his brow in confusion.

“What?”

Yamato tries to extract his hands but only manages to tug on Taichi’s hair. He scrunches up his nose and bares his teeth in pain.

“Ow!”

“See? I’m stuck.”

“In my _hair?”_

Yamato flaps his elbows up and down helplessly. He’s so unbearably cute that Taichi can’t help but lean in and kiss him again. He has a feeling that, tonight, he’s going to have a good night’s sleep.

Once they find a way to get Yamato free.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: smugsnail/smugsnailcos


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